Greed.

Sh!t you're good Johnny.
Fast becoming one of my all-time heroes.
Yep I'm still on the juice. But remember I'm not in your time zone.

johnny, who would you prefer to bet against - other people or high frequency betfair bots?

Btw Johnny, did you know that the favourite saying of Hank Greenberg ( the guy who set up AIG for its monumental fall from grace) was :
" All I want from life is an unfair advantage ".

" All I want from life is an unfair advantage "

Isn't that what this exchange operator has?

JTG, of all the posters on here I have suspected to be a Betfair employee, you are the one I am most sure are one now.

  You were one of the most frequent PC defending posters when the cgarge was first introduced.
  You haven't been (much) around until now when the charges are increased, still not posting anything but PC defending carp.
  You have now made an astonishing 224 posts during your 9 years on here and I would be very surprised if not at least 220 of them were PC defending posts.

Eddie,

I can assure you that you are wrong.

There has to be two sides to any debate.

Betfair,(or indeed any business), have the freedom to decide on any pricing structure they wish to whichever customers they wish ,changing their minds as many times as they wish.

We,the customers, then have the freedom to decide whether we wish to purchase the goods or services on the terms offered.

The notion that the customers should somehow be involved in running Betfair's business is ludicrous. Yet,we have thread after thread packed with this nonsense.

I'm just keeping a sense of balance to proceedings.

Johnny,

You are right, any business can be run as wished.

A business should anyhow not claim that it penalizes other customers to protect the rest or attract new customers ... (apparently no-one is aware of what the business is doing to protect the rest of customers or to attract new ones ... but surely there is something being done)

And retroactive measures? We charge you based upon what you have done the last 10 years, not on future performance. And of course, because we do charge on a weekly basis performance, we have forgotten to tell our customers that it may not only be 60% but a lot more and that we may even drive customers into a minus balance.

Johnny The Guesser
05 Jul 11 07:55 Joined: 15 Apr 02 | Topic/replies: 224 | Blogger: Johnny The Guesser's blog
Answer me this.

Why is it so right for some of you guys to be able to squeeze every last penny out of the exchange but so wrong that Betfair should try to do the same thing?



Err, because I'm not pretending not to be a middleman.

Saint,

If you don't like or are unsure of what using the services of Betfair will cost you when placing your next bet - then don't place it!

All businesses operate an element of retrospective pricing! - Good customers pay less - Bad customers more.

And there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.  Winners are BAD CUSTOMERS.

Please put that in your next advertising campaign.

What happened to Betfair being the champion of gamblers, the good Betfair against the evil bookmakers?  Winners welcome?  Sharp minds?  Instead, it's "FuKK winners, the money is ours."

Let me tell you, it's against the whole ethos of a betting exchange.  It's not YOUR money, it belongs to the customers.

JTG, I have no problems with people expressing their wievs on here whether they agree with me or not.
  I just find it hard to belive that a poster ( you) who never posts on this forum except to defend Premium Charge isn't a Betfair employee.
  You have been on here for 9 years and I'm pretty sure all your now 227 posts are about and defending PC.  A bit strange if I may say so...

jtg the high street bookmakers have been squeezeing the punters dry for years, now it seems betfair wish to join them .

Johnny,

I am happy to learn how British Gas has increased the pricing of your gas bill by looking at your last 10 years with them.

Any other example you may come up with is also welcome, of course.

in the early days it used to be winners welcome,we do not close winning accounts,well when they tax you at between40-60 percent,i think there saying f--k off your account is no longer welcome

Answer me this.

Why is it so right for some of you guys to be able to squeeze every last penny out of the exchange...

----------

ah - that'll be why their profit's fallen to zero and they've shut down all the loss making terrible spin-offs i suppose.

If the winners, and perpetual profit-makers, who use Betfair, were benefitting from good form selection, being lucky, or real betting strategies, then I would disagree with johnny the guesser too.

However, many, if not nearly all the people moaning about the PC - (or at least those who would be hit hardest) are treating the place as a business, and utilising technology, time or other advantages to make a 'living' from the site.

Since when did people make a living from gambling? This is a gambling site, not a means to programme a way into not actually losing by market or other money manipulation. That it has become so is unfortunate for a majority of BF users and genuine punters who, when it comes down to it are the ones actually paying for the consistent profits made by people who couldn't give a toss about results, form or any other factors which usually go into deciding how to bet.

Betfair are partly to blame for this situation in that they have promoted Bots and winning strategy seminars and the like, and have thus created such an unfair situation.

Not that it matters really because anyone affected by premium Charges will probably just operate with someone else's (or an alternative) account anyway.

SweetFa, you said you know a guy on here who win regularly and in a fair(your wording) way.

  Why do you refuse to belive that there are plenty others like him ?

1st - The amounts of money involved.

2nd, he, despite not using any unfair advantages, doesn't know of need to know anything about form, results or the things in which he 'bets'.
While it isn't in an unfair way, it still isn't within the spirit of things imo, and it still is merely a 'job', of sorts.

I'm of the opinion that Betfair was neither set up to be, nor should it be a vocation. it should be a betting site, for betting. I'm quite happy to lose to people who have a bet against me, but not to people who utilise the betting (or IT) system we use to skim my stakes from me or not be prepared to lose it back to me next time we bet.

*know of OR need to

Good post SweetFa

Eddie. Clearly there are some shrewd punters on here (and good luck to them) who will now be caught with the new pc hike. Of the 480 or so who will shortly attract the higher commission then I believe that the vast majority are exactly as described by SweetFa - namely business operators utilising time delays and technology to win huge amounts of money.

It's a pity that genuine winning punters will get caught up in all this, but they are in the minority in my view.

CY, I agree that punters/position takers probably are a minority, but it's certainly wrong to assum ther are almost none as SweetFa does.

  I'm 47 % total charges myself now and could very well dip below 40 in a very short time if I have a good week or two and I know of at least 4 others mainly betting on golf that is below 40 % and none of them are exploiting any kind of unfair advantage nor do they to my knowledge use any kind of bots.

However, many, if not nearly all the people moaning about the PC - (or at least those who would be hit hardest) are treating the place as a business, and utilising technology, time or other advantages to make a 'living' from the site.

sweetfa, you may want to have a look at how betfair started and ask yourself if maybe you are betting at the wrong company.


So where did the actual idea come from? “It was taken from the way the stock exchange works and from everything I’d done,” tells Black. “It’s very simple, Betfair is a cross section of taking stock exchange technology to the gambling market using the internet. In my career I’ve worked directly with the stock exchange, I’ve been a professional gambler and I’ve built websites. I’ve been there on all three of them.”

Andrew Black

Not sure that SweetFa went quite that far Eddie - but I accept the general point you are making.

It's probably reasonable to assume that a vast majority of users of Betfair are not extremely wealthy probably bet in single or double figures (in £ or dollar or Euro), yet a few people - 480?? in the case of the latest premium charge information, are making at least £250,000 in profit in, at the most, 10 years.

In "doing the math", I have come to the conclusion that it isn't particularly fair that so few should benefit so much from so many.
I would also question the methods being used to enable this profit making.

Whatever else Betfair is, it's primarily a Betting site, and to me at least, there is a difference between Betting and utilising Technology, time, and other information which is not readily available as standard for all those using the site.

If I'm wrong and it IS reasonable, then nearly everyone (at least 90%) using Betfair needn't bother.

You do realise that your analysis can be applied to High St betting as well, except there are fewer winners there.

Or the lottery. A few evil people benefit every week, from many.

You're arguing for abolishing betting altogether.

Somebody suggested stop the API.
Now I'm not a techie.
Would that even be feasible now ?
If so, would it solve the " problem" of persons only winning because of advanced " IT " skills, and not " gambling " skills, if the latter phrase is not an oxymoron.

Let's abolish futures trading and with it the basis of the financial markets ... some clever people are also win ...

What I read in some of the statements is a double moral: if others win with their skills is inmoral and they have to be penalized ... if I win with mine ... it is right.

firstly, it's not possible to stop programatic access to the site by closing down the API; you can write software that spoofs a browser and then just render all the received html to a format that suits your program. (it's what makes the quacks charging mechanism for API access so daft, along with the completely random nature of being a maker or a taker if you bet into the spread in liquid markets).

but secondly what is it with the API-haters?

a few programming skills and bobs your uncle, the path to profits is there for all to see? damn, if only i could write a half decent program i'd be a multi millionaire.

you actually have to have a strategy to get your software to make money which has to work manually before working programatically.

if there are zero risk methods to find free arbs across markets, (rather within them cf. the cross matching) then it's betfair's job to stop it rather than allow it to continue, rather than shutting down the api or taking a cut of the profits.

SweetFa
05 Jul 11 15:24   

It's probably reasonable to assume that a vast majority of users of Betfair are not extremely wealthy probably bet in single or double figures (in £ or dollar or Euro), yet a few people - 480?? in the case of the latest premium charge information, are making at least £250,000 in profit in, at the most, 10 years.

In "doing the math", I have come to the conclusion that it isn't particularly fair that so few should benefit so much from so many.

  So you think it's fair that someone betting in 4, 5 or even 6 figures are charged much more in % of profit than someoen with the same strike rate that is betting in single or double figures ?

  And who says they are benefitting from so many, they can be winning of other punters betting in the same figures.

sorry - it's not their job, but they are within their rights to do so with a model similar to cross matching.

Aren't the financial markets currently concerned with IT developments such as the extreme high frequency nano-second type trading activities being expanded exponentially by " smart " operators.
Aren't they looking at ways to stop or at least severely limit this  "unfair " advantage.?

Fine ... they are only concerned with stopping random behaviour by some bots that can drive extreme prices and hit big players ...

No they are not concerned with HFT and rather it is encouraged by exchanges, because each transaction has a charge. More transactions, more money.

As I said before, weatherman. If someone wins by luck, skill, form picking, then it isn't unfair, nor is it unreasonable.

It's the treating the place as a business, picking holes in the betting platform and most especially being able to utilise time advantage and other unfair methods to effectively nick my money, which I object to.

As a bookie, I'm hardly likely to want to see the end of gambling, am I?

has someone written some software that logs into your account and places the bets for you SweetFa?

clever stuff.

Btw maybe the debate/argument now is moving more towards how, not if, BF should and could try to crimp the activities of the super operators, whose success is not only solely dependent on IT skills, but also drains the whole betting pool at an unsustainable rate.
If so, then the PC or super tax approach is most definitely wrong, as it catches too many unintended targets, who are genuine, honest to God pure gamblers, taking real risks and putting in lots of time and research to refine and improve their gambling strategies.
Their success should not be discriminately penalised, or at least certainly not above a reasonable cost to GP level, say a max of 20%.

No - They haven't.
Fortunately I also haven't been to your school of pompous smugness either.

courtsiders:

i. taking advantage of inadequate delays.

ii. taking advantage of the huge benefits of being able to place hundreds of derivative bets in an encompassing market and only paying commission on their net profit from the market.

iii. scaring people away from in play markets.


honestly, is it really that hard to strategically target and hit this lot first?

SweetFA - then nobody is "nicking" your money

That was to DStyle, btw.
Who seems to be deliberately missing the point.

In a more precise answer to your question. It wouldn't matter who places bets in my account. There are people, not betting against my choices, but utilising other advantages not available to everyone as standard.
However clever I am, I'll never be able to beat that.

but you can choose not to lose to it.

exactly DStyle

oh 16.00 post

Do betfair still have a team of traders working for them???

If I chose not to lose it, and other people felt they were being pillaged by self-proclaimed "shrewdies" and "courtsiders", there wouldn't be an exchange. I don't mind losing, I like winning, I do some of both. All I want is for the playing field to be level.

ffs - i mean - exactly DStyle on the 16.00 post

I'm just waiting on SweetFA using the word "Ferengi"...

But how can the playing field be level on inrunning as customers around the world will have different delays in their tv pictures.   No matter what you are betting on inplay there will almost always be someone who have a faster feed even if it is only a second.
  If you want to bet inplay you just have to adapt or leave it, it's that easy.
  I was betting on Wimbledon final and found out that market prices moved roughly 2 seconds before I saw the reason on my tv.  Then I just had to cancel unmatched bets when I saw either Djokovic bouncing the ball for the 6th time or when Nadal scratched his ar$e.   
Problem solved and I was able to place bets between any of the hundreds of points that were played.

Tennis i can understand , What i don't get is the delay on the suspend in soccer matches .

A goal is scored and the sign appears a seconds later , how come BF aren't using the fastest pics available ?

Eddie i saw people with netbooks at wimbledon and i know a lot of courtside reporters use betfair.